Be Still And Know That I'm With You
by never-give-up-hope2
Summary: "Tali is sixteen years old when she finally works up the courage to ask her father what happened." She needs to know the answers. Post 13x24 "Family First" AU.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: _So here I am, writing something and publishing it over a year after the fact but I've recently been rewatching and my little shipper heart has been hurting so I thought I'd turn it into something productive. I don't know if there's anyone left around in this part of the fandom to read this, but if there are, hello, and welcome to my little something that I began just under a year and a half ago and just yesterday picked up and finished it off. I hope you enjoy._

* * *

 _If you forget the way to go_

 _And lose where you came from_

 _If no one is standing beside you_

 _Be still and know I am_

~' _Be Still' The Fray_

Tali is sixteen years old when she finally works up the courage to ask her father about what happened.

She's known for quite a while that something was just _different_ about her. She didn't quite match up with all of the other children in her year at school, or indeed anywhere. Apart from having the dead mother, the American father, the Jewish upbringing, and the accent that she can never quite work out where it came from. No, she knows that all of that is partly what makes her different.

There is not much she knows about her own childhood before she started school. She knows that her mother died when she was almost two in a house fire. She knows that she lived in Israel for a while, and then in Paris before finally coming here, to England. She knows her father used to be a federal agent in the US, and her mother was Israeli and worked with her father. She knows that she has a family in America that isn't her blood family but she loves them all the same. Except that's it, that's all she knows, and, up until now, she's been too afraid to ask her father for anything more.

He gets a strange look in his eye when she asks about her mother. He rarely ever gives her information that is more than a fact. Mostly he just brushes off the question and asks her about her schoolwork, or her dancing, or her martial arts, or if she has considered different universities yet. Sometimes he won't even do that but will look past her and look at her but see something or _someone_ else entirely.

Except now she can't tolerate that anymore. She can't handle _not knowing_ because she has as much a right to know as her father does. More, in fact, as this is her own mother, her own childhood that she wants to know.

She waits for a day of the week that she knows her father will be happy. A Thursday is his favourite. He has a half day teaching and so after her school finishes they'll go for dinner and catch up on what's happened throughout the week. Then they'll come back and watch a movie while she'll do any homework she has and her father makes comments on literally every single scene.

Today, though, once they've come back from dinner and her father is making the popcorn for the movie, Tali works up the courage to ask her father what happened.

" _Aba?"_ She asks him when he comes through from the kitchen. "What happened when I was younger? Like when _ima_ died? What actually happened? Because you never tell me anything and I think it's about time I know because I can handle it I swear and I promise nothing will ever make me love you less if that's what you're worried about." It comes out in a sort of rush, and not what she was going for at all.

Her father sets down the popcorn and then eases himself into his chair. He's so silent for so long that Tali wonders if he'll answer at all. Eventually, he looks at her and says, "What would you like to know?"

She's so delighted she almost falls off the sofa. "All of it."

Her father laughs, but it's not a funny laugh, more disbelief. "There's a lot to tell."

Right. Right. She knows that. She knows this is a difficult topic for her father so she should probably be specific. "What made you leave Israel? After _Ima_ died, why did we leave? I mean if you had a job and a life and stuff." This is so less eloquent than Tali made it out to be in her head.

Her father swallows. "Tali, the truth is, I never lived in Israel."

She's confused. Oh so confused. "What? No. Of course we did."

"No, _you_ did. You and your _ima._ Not me." He looks at her and she sees within his eyes a kind of sorrow she thought only existed in movies.

"No," she says, shaking her head in disbelief. "Where were you? Why weren't you there with us? Did you have to leave? I don't understand."

"Tali, I didn't live with you both in Israel because I didn't know you _existed_. I found out about you the day after I found out your _ima_ was killed. One of her friends brought you to me. That was when I found out about you."

It hits her like a sucker punch to the stomach. She doesn't know what to think, what to say. Tears begin to gather at the corner of her eyelids. She's never been one for crying easily and so she doesn't reach up to wipe them away because her father would see.

"Okay…" she breathes. " _Ima_ didn't tell you about me?"

Her father shakes his head. "No, she didn't. I wish she had, Tali, believe me. If I'd have known that Ziva was pregnant I would have been there, believe me. I hate that I didn't know you until you were almost two, you gotta believe that."

"Why didn't she tell you?" She asks, feeling smaller than she ever has done.

"I don't know. Your _ima_ was such an independent person, and she'd already asked me to leave her. I think that she didn't want me to come back after she'd already made me leave. She loved you, Tali, she loved you so much and I honestly believe she was going to introduce us when she thought the time was right. The fact that you knew my picture when I first met you proves that."

 _Aba._ She knows the picture. It sits on her bedside table and she says goodnight to her mother every night while looking at it.

"That's why I call you _Aba._ Because I've never known anything different."

Tali looks at her father and she swears that there are tears in her eyes. He clears his throat. "You know, when I met you, you didn't speak any English at all. I had a hell of a job trying to ask you things and trying to tell you off when you did something bad." He laughs a little sadly. "I didn't mind though. You were the only real tie to Ziva I had, and when you spoke Hebrew you sounded so much like her. The day you came home from nursery and started babbling in English I went out to the garden, to your _ima_ ' _s_ stone, and cried."

She slowly moves next to her father. He lifts up his arm and she settles into his chest like she has done for as long as she can remember. She feels an urge to apologise but she doesn't know what for. For the first time, she thinks about what it must feel like, being her father. What she has just learned has hit her so hard and she really doesn't know how things will be able to go back to normal after this. So is that what it has been like for her father all of these years? Looking at her and re-living all of those hellish moments? She knows her father loves her, and yet she wonders if a small part of him resents her for putting him through this pain.

So she apologises anyway. "I'm sorry, _aba._ "

He immediately spins away and looks at her with an intensity that she's only seen a handful of times. "No, Tali, you have nothing to apologise for. You hear me?" Within his eyes, she sees a reflection of herself. "I love you so much, and the only thing I would change about the past sixteen years is that I'd drag your _ima_ on the plane home with me, instead of leaving her in Israel. Alright? That is the _only_ thing I would change. I would rather have her here, believe me, but if I had to live these years all over again then I'd do it without a second thought. My life is infinitely times better with you in it."

Tali hugs into her father again. He hugs her back and she relishes how familiar and comfortable her _aba's_ embrace is. How for fourteen years the two of them have conquered the world together. How much she truly loves him.

But he knows her too well. He always has been able to decipher her, so he says, "There's more you want to know? Isn't there?"

And oh my _yes_ there are so many things she wants to know. She wants to know more of the two missing years where it was just her and her mother. She wants to know of the day her _aba_ found out about her. She wants to know how he did it, taking a strange child and travel the world with her before settling down in an entirely new country. She wants to know more about her _ima,_ more about the kind of woman she was, how she could keep a baby away from her _aba_ for two whole years. She wants to know how they fell in love. She wants to know how they walked away. She wants to know how her _aba_ did it alone and uncomplaining for all this time.

But there aren't the right words to express that, so instead she says, "Everything."

He gets up and turns off the TV where it was waiting patiently for a movie they hadn't yet selected. It's always his choice. He goes through to the kitchen and makes them both hot chocolate whilst Tali waits anxiously perched on the arm of his chair, wondering how this will affect him. Perhaps she's being selfish, asking him to tell her things when it will only cause him pain. She doesn't want to cause him pain. She only wants to _know._

" _Aba,_ " she begins, when he comes back through with two steaming mugs. They were gifts to her when she was younger, and both have _TD_ hand painted on them in blue, with an Israeli flag on one side of the letters, and an American flag on the other. For as long as she can remember having these mugs, her father has taken one and she has taken the other.

"Yeah?"

She's forgotten, caught by the mugs and all that they suddenly seem to hold, what she was going to say. She shakes her head to clear the thoughts. "We don't have to talk."

"You change your mind about knowing?"

" _No,_ " she says insistently, "of course not. I just… don't want to make you talk about things that you maybe don't want to talk about."

He sets the mugs down on the coffee table and gathers her face between his hands. Looking up at him, she sees tears in his eyes and it causes something inside her to snap because he looks so young and vulnerable in this very moment. Her _aba_ is big and strong and he protects her from the monsters. She has never, even on the anniversary of the death of her _ima,_ even on her birthday late at night when he gets tears in his eyes and talks to her when he thinks Tali can't see him, even at the beginning of October when he gets melancholy for a few days, she has never seen him this sad before.

"Oh, Tali," he murmurs and yet she knows that he isn't talking to her. "You're so like her."

His hands drop away from her face and he eases himself back into the chair. She cuddles into him and a memory pops into her head of her being two years old and terrified from a nightmare. She had been crying and screaming and he had cuddled her into him and kissed her on top of her head and said things that she couldn't understand but his voice had soothed her and she hadn't been frightened anymore.

"You need to know," he says. "No matter how much it hurts me to talk about it, you need to know, Tali, because this is your life. It's yours and I can't hide it from you, can't protect you from it no matter how much I want to."

Only now does she see the sacrifice he's made all these years.

"Do the family in America know too?" She asks. "About _ima_ and you and me?"

He laughs. "Do they know about it? They were there for it. All of it."

And she realises their sacrifice too. Uncle McGee and Auntie Abbie and Grandpa Gibbs and Auntie Ellie and Uncle Jimmy. All of them made a sacrifice for her, to protect her from the knowledge that might have hurt her, made her feel less than who she was. She waits for hate to come, rage and indignation at being left out of a family secret of her own beginnings. She waits in vain and no matter how deep she searches within herself, she can't find it. She doesn't hate them for it, she loves them.

She waits for hatred for her _ima,_ for keeping her _aba_ away from her for two years. She finds nothing except a sadness. Tali wonders how she could do it, but she suspects her _aba_ will tell her soon enough.

"Tell me about her," she requests. _Tell me about how you two got together. Tell me about the complex and winding path that was your relationship. Tell me about a woman you loved so much that you found it the most painful thing you ever did to let her go. Tell me everything about it, so I can feel that she's here. Tell me, so I don't feel like I have a missing piece of my soul anymore._

"She was Ziva David." He laughs again even if it is a little sad. His eyes seem happier. "She was… my best friend."

Tali smiles and nestles further into her father, letting his voice lull her into a world of assassins and terrorists and glances across desks that were so full of everything. She imagines it and lets herself be filled by it, by a world that has shaped her and made her who she is today, even though she's never known it.

She lets her _ima_ be brought back to her through these stories, and she lets it be enough.


	2. Unsteady

A/N: _So here's the second instalment of this little thing I didn't intend to become a story but apparently now is. I was really happy to see the reaction to the first part, so thank you to each and everyone who reviewed, followed and favourited. It means a lot! I hope you enjoy part 2._

 _-x-_

 _Hold on to me_

 _'Cause I'm a little unsteady_

 _~'Unsteady' X Ambassadors_

Her feet touch down on American soil and every cell in her body tingles with excitement.

Tali knows that she's been to America before, she has seen the stamp on her passport with her very own eyes, but she can't remember it. Her _aba_ has always refused to take her, no matter how much she has begged every Christmas and birthday for at least the past eight years. _Please, aba. I miss them,_ she'd say, widening her eyes as far as they would go. It was always in vain, for he would only kiss her on the head and say that her aunts and uncles and her grandfathers would visit in summer as they always did.

When she got older, in some part of her mind, she knew he was just afraid of going back. His entire life had been there until she had come along and flipped it upside down, although until recently she's always thought that the flipping which had occurred had been of the natural 'oh my I'm going to be a parent' variety and not the 'oh holy shit I'm a dad to this nearly two-year-old'.

However, after telling her the true, full story of her beginnings, her _aba_ had surprised her one Thursday with two plane tickets to the US for the Christmas holidays. She had smiles and hugged him and said _thank you thank you thank you,_ a new appreciation of how hard this must be for him to do. And then she had asked, with a sudden thought having popped into her mind:

"You're coming, right?"

He had laughed and ruffled her hair. "Of course I am, kiddo. You and me always."

It's true. It's always been the two of them, apart from the brief period when she was almost six when she thought she might have gotten a stepmother. It hadn't lasted ever since then it's always just been the two of them. They haven't left the UK once ever since they moved here when she was two and a half. They've been to Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and other places in England on their summer holidays, whilst others in her classes went to places like France or Tenerife or Florida. Tali never minded, though. She enjoyed the holidays with her _aba,_ sightseeing around a country that was _theirs._

She feels him behind her as they step off the plane, and his steps are much more hesitant than hers. At the passport desk, assuming because of his accent, the man tells him, "Welcome home" and Tali sees him start, momentarily confused before mumbling a "thank you" and hurrying towards baggage.

She understands that this must be incredibly painful for him. He is an _American_ and no matter where they've gone or who she is, that hasn't changed. He had lived here all of his life until fourteen years ago, and the fact that his home is no longer his home confuses him. She almost wishes that they hadn't come, that he didn't have to be the one to bring her, but the truth is that she doesn't think that she's strong enough to do this without him. And anyway, there isn't anyone else. It's always just been her _aba._

After they have their luggage he leads her over to a bench and sits her down, gently taking both his hands in hers.

"Tali," he begins. "Before we go out there, I need to make sure you understand a few things, alright?"

His voice is grave and it sounds ominous and more than anything in this moment she wants to be a child who is blissfully ignorant. But she asked for this, asked for the truth and she's no longer a child. She's sixteen and she can handle this because she's strong. It's in her genes.

"I need you to know that I can't give you anything here, okay?"

Tali just stares at her _aba_ in puzzlement, letting a question mark creep into her features. She stays silent.

"I uh, I just need you not to expect anything, to know that there's nothing here I can give you. Your _ima_ hadn't lived here in two years and she didn't, well she didn't die here so there's no grave to sit at and… I don't want you to be disappointed."

She knew all of this before coming, she did, but somehow hearing it cements it in her mind. The only thing about her _ima_ she will find here is the memory of her in the rest of her family.

"I know," she says and she tries to smile but she can't.

"Just don't want you hurt, Tali," he says, standing up then and dropping a kiss on her hair. She stands up too, and they grab their luggage and make for the arrivals hall where they know their family is waiting.

" _Oh my gosh you have gotten so big!_ " her Auntie Abby shrieks, pulling her in for a hug, then pulling back to look at her, and then pulling her back in again. "I just can't believe how big you are."

"She is sixteen, Abs," her uncle McGee comments, but he's laughing too and pulls her in for a hug that isn't quite as tight. "It's good to see you, Tali."

"It's good to see you too," she replies and stops for a moment at how strange her accent sounds. Nobody appears to have noticed.

"Tony," Abby smiles and pulls him in for a hug. Then McGee joins in and the three of them have a group hug for a moment. Tali feels like a stranger. She supposes that in a way she is.

They break apart. "How's it feel to be back?" McGee asks him.

"Weird," her _aba_ laughs but it sounds forced. Nobody acknowledges it. "Yeah, just… weird." He claps McGee on the shoulder. "So, where's the rest of the gang? Big boss man couldn't come welcome me? Where're the banners and the marching band? You're slipping, guys."

This makes Tali laugh and her _aba_ flashes her a grin. She loves it when she sees her family, loves her relaxed her _aba_ becomes in their presence. They're his family – hers too, of course, but mostly his and when he's with them she knows he feels more complete, more at _home._

"There's a big case, Tony. Really big. Gibbs isn't here because he's working on it, that's how big this is."

"Yeah, I don't miss those."

Tali feels a hand on her shoulder, squeezing tight. She suspects it's more to ground him rather than her.

"Well, Tali, where do you wanna go first?"

And here she freezes, because she has never gotten this far in all her years of planning. She's spent all of the time dreaming on actually just getting her _aba_ to bring her here in the first place, that she's never thought about what she would do if she succeeded. She flounders for a moment, caught unawares in the flood of feelings coursing through her.

It's her Auntie Abby that stops her from drowning, by exclaiming that Tali must come and see her totally redecorated lab and the family of Berts that now resides there.

"Yeah," she manages to squeeze out from her suddenly painfully constricted throat. "That sounds good."

Her _aba_ takes her suitcase from her and gives her a reassuring smile even though she knows he must be wary about his return to NCIS. "Off to the lab we go!"

-x-

"Oh God, this place really hasn't changed, has it?"

McGee laughs. "Nope! Pretty much everything's the same as you left it."

Her _aba_ looks so old all of a sudden. "I tell you what, I really do not miss these orange walls." But she can tell from the way his eyes are lit up that he really does.

In the dark recesses of her mind, Tali remembers a bit from her brief visit to NCIS more than fourteen years ago. It's one of those memories that are so fuzzy you can't be sure if it's real or not, and you only remember it because you force yourself to remember it so often. She remembers the bright orange walls and the big windows and the way a woman had held her hand a little tighter when she'd tried to go explore.

The memory had never made any sense before her _aba_ had told her the truth. She simply assumed that she had listened to him talk about NCIS so much that she'd just accepted the memory as hers. That's why she pushed it to the back of her mind, saving her from having to come up with an explanation.

In the lab, her Auntie Abby shows her the new machines and what they can do, plum coloured walls that actually make a lab seem homey if it ever can be, and the family of Berts that are quite adorable. Tali _oohs_ and _ahhhs_ appropriately but her heart isn't quite in it. Science has never been of strong interest to her and she's tired and more than anything just wants to sleep.

"Hey, McGoo, are Gibbs and Bishop and the gang going to be much longer in their secret task force meeting with the director?" Her _aba_ asks. She doesn't miss his glance at her before the question.

"I don't know. Could be a while."

"I think we're gonna go get checked into our hotel then. Jetlag's killing me." And he fakes a yawn.

"Oh, I totally forgot about that! Gosh, Tali, you must be so tired! Let me just send a quick email and then I'll drive you guys, okay?"

"Sounds good, Abs," _aba_ says and slings an arm around Tali's shoulders.

She lets herself be gently nudged from lab to car and falls asleep on the way to the hotel, lulled to sleep by the constant and familiar motion.

-x-

 _"_ _So you guys aren't staying with Gibbs, huh?"_

 _"_ _Nope."_

 _"_ _He would've taken you guys in, I know it. Think he was pretty hurt that you never asked him. I mean I know he doesn't say much but you can definitely tell."_

 _"_ _The guy's getting on, Abs. Don't think he would've appreciated us gate-crashing his retirement."_

 _"_ _Do not lie to me, Tony. I know when you're lying,"_

 _"_ _I just… didn't think it was a good idea is all."_

 _"_ _A good idea? Gibbs is family."_

 _"_ _I know that, and I appreciate that, but this isn't about me. This is about Tali. I gotta do what's right for her and I just thought that staying in Gibbs' house might be bordering on 'too much'."_

 _"_ _Too much? We are a family."_

 _"_ _She's had a lot sprung on her, and I know that you guys are her family and you aren't a bunch of strangers, but she's seeing things in a new light now. I want to give her time."_

 _"_ _She's stronger than you think, Tony. She's like her both of her parents that way."_

 _"_ _Yeah, I know. But she's only sixteen and I'm not gonna put her up to anything I don't think she's ready to do, alright?"_

 _"_ _Tony…"_

 _"_ _I'm her father and it's my job to protect her."_

 _"_ _You won't lose her."_

 _"_ _Maybe I'm just not willing to risk finding out."_

-x-

"Come on, kiddo. Time to wake up."

She pretends to blink awake, although she has been awake for the last ten minutes and heard the majority of the conversation going on in the front seat.

Her _aba_ is holding the door open for her, looking aged five years in the space of the twenty-minute journey. Tali hops out into the mid-afternoon. It's grey and dreary and reminds her so very much of home.

From the front seat, her Auntie Abby tells her to sleep well and she'll see her tomorrow. She waves as she drives away.

Tali feels strange like she's in some kind of dream. It doesn't feel altogether real. Even as she gets to her hotel room, showers, gets into pyjamas and slides into bed. A small part of her wants to go back to the story that was her truth until a few months ago. It was a watered down truth and made her feel incomplete, sure, but it was also safe. The truth now is fine in some places but spiked in other and she isn't sure where it hurts the most, is never sure where it will hurt her next. She wants to be little again. Little and safe and let her _aba_ read stories to her and put her hair in plaits and make her hot chocolate and carry her up to bed when she fell asleep on the couch. She wants to be small, and she wants to believe once more that there is nothing bigger in this world than her _aba._

But with the memories of her childhood with her _aba,_ come the faint memories of a childhood with her _ima._ Soft hands smoothing her hair. A soft voice telling her that it was _time to sleep now._ Playing in the sea at the beach, sitting high on someone's shoulders as they told her to see if she could try and touch the sky.

And oh God, how she misses her _ima_ in this very moment. How much she wants one of those hugs that are so faint in her memory. She wants to be held by her, have her hair smoothed over her head, and she wants someone to tell her that it's all going to be alright.

Tears are in her eyes and rolling down her face before she even knows it. Sobs bubble from her throat and she tries hard to suppress them so her _aba_ can't hear from the room next door. She can't let him think she can't handle this trip. He'd never bring her here again, and it would likely be a while before he'd let them visit in England.

She loves him more than anything, and after that conversation accidentally overheard, she knows that she must protect him too. She can't allow him to know how she truly feels. It's not that this is too much, it's just that it isn't what she expected it would feel like. Visiting NCIS, even just the lab, knowing that she had been where her _ima_ had once been, albeit sixteen years ago, just felt different to how she expected is all. Next time, she'll be more prepared. She makes that promise to herself. She'll be stronger. She'll be ready.

But just now she neither has to be strong nor ready so she allows herself to sob silently for her _ima_ and her _aba_ and all the things that perhaps should have been.


End file.
